“In a surprise announcement, scientists in the US say they have recreated the influenza virus that killed at least 50 million people in 1918, and they have infected mice with it.

“They say the need to understand how flu viruses cause lethal pandemics outweighs any safety risks. But the risks may not be negligible.

“By painstakingly piecing together viral fragments from hospital specimens and a victim buried in Alaskan permafrost, Jeff Taubenberger and colleagues at the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Rockville, Maryland, have now sequenced all eight coding regions of the 1918 flu virusâ€™s genome. They published the last three – coding for the polymerase complex that allows the virus to replicate – on Wednesday”.

“I think specs are peripheral to the topic here. We have all seen great innovation with Nokiaâ€™s phone designs especially with the Nokia 7280 . Yanko Design features the Nokia 888 which is a lightweight communication device with a totally flexible form factor. What does that mean? you can roll it, you can make it a wrist band, you can straighten it, however you want it. The site mentions use of liquid battery and flexible touch screens for the concept. Lets wait and see, when Nokia picks it up and I would have it in my hands.”

“‘Tempest for Eliza’ is a program that uses your computer monitor to send out AM radio signals. You can then hear computer generated music in your radio.

“All electronic devices send out eletromagnetic waves – so does your monitor, and your monitor does it all the time at very high frequencies. They are high enough for your shortwave AM radio. All you have to do is display the ‘correct’ image on your screen and your monitor will emit the ‘right’ signals.”

“‘What Is Web 2.0’ by Tim O’Reilly — Defining just what Web 2.0 means (the term was first coined at a conference brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International, which also spawned the Web 2.0 Conference), still engenders much disagreement. Some decry it as a meaningless marketing buzzword, while others have accepted it as the new conventional wisdom. Tim O’Reilly attempts to clarify just what we meant by Web 2.0, digging into what it means to view the Web as a platform and which applications fall squarely under its purview, and which do not.”

“A research project at the MIT Media Lab has a plan for getting $100 laptops in the hands of millions of people around the world. One notable feature is a hand crank for providing power in places where electricity is undependable or unavailable… The battery doubles as a handle and the shoulder strap is the power supply and plug.”

“Windows is broken and Microsoft has admitted it. In an unprecedented attempt to explain its Longhorn problems and how it abandoned its traditional way of working, the normally secretive software giant has given unparalleled access to The Wall Street Journal, even revealing how Vice President Jim Allchin, personally broke the bad news to Bill Gates.

“Allchin is co-head of the Platform Products and Services Division. ‘It’s not going to work,’ he told Gates in the chairman’s office, the paper reports. ‘[Longhorn] is so complex its writers will never be able to make it run properly.’ The reason: Microsoft engineers were building it just as they had always built software. Thousands of programmers each produced their own piece of computer code, to be stitched together into one sprawling program. But Longhorn/Vista was too complex: Microsoft needed to begin again, Allchin told Gates. Allchin’s warning recognised a growing threat from Google, Apple Computer, makers of Linux and corporate buyers – the latter horrified about security problems. Allchin and a small team demanded a revolution in how Microsoft works.”